PepsiCo India has said that its controversial advertisement allegedly depicting child labour has been off-air since the third week of September.
On Friday, Uma Mamidupudi, a child labour activist from Hyderabad, had filed a public interest litigation against Pepsi in a city court for glorifying child labour.
Also named in the case are Sony Entertainment Television which telecast the ads during the Champions Trophy, cricketers Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly who featured in the commercial, the BCCI and the Advertising Standards Council of India.
The court has said that no advertisement depicting child labour should be aired until further orders.
A PepsiCo spokesperson, however, said the company is yet to receive any notice from the court. The ad in question shows the Indian team in a celebratory huddle when a young boy comes out of an underground tunnel to serve them Pepsi.
This, however, is not the first time that child worker has been depicted in TV commercials. Some years back, MTV India produced a commercial which depicted a young boy dancing to the tunes of an old hindi song playing on the radio while serving tea to customers.
